This fund’s top five holdings are Whitewave Foods Company (WWAV, 0.61% of assets), Acuity Brands Inc (AYI, 0.56/5), United Therapeutics Corp (UTHR, 0.55%), SVB Financial Group (SIVB, 0.53%), and Extra Space Storage Inc (EXR, 0.52%).
Vanguard Small Cap Growth Index (VISGX)
from The Moneyletter
Vanguard Small Cap Growth Index (VISGX) employs a full replication strategy for its target index, the CRSP US Small Cap Growth Index (the Center for Research in Security Prices). CRSP evaluates small cap stocks on various growth and value criteria. Growth characteristics include expected short- and long-term earnings per-share growth, historical earnings and sales per-share growth, return on assets, and others. The half of the universe with the strongest growth characteristics is included in the index. Holdings are weighted in the index by market capitalization.
The resulting index—and this fund—has more than 700 holdings, with less than 6% of assets in the top ten holdings.
Looking at sectors, financials are on top with 19.8% of assets, followed by industrials, health care, technology, and consumer services. So one could certainly characterize the fund as well diversified.
Moreover, performance has been above-average overall. While the year-to-date return of 6.6% only places it in the top two-thirds of the small growth category, looking back over ten calendar years, only in 2013 did it fall below the 50th percentile in performance.
Walter Frank, Moneyletter, www.moneyletter.com, 800-890-9670, July 2015